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Randoms | week of April 16th

Re: Randoms | week of April 16th

@klj0228 I think I have a touch of bitterness over my dad wanting us kids to mow the yard and pull weeds and all that jazz. My parents' lot isn't all that big, like 9,000 sq ft, give or take? But their house is barely 1,000 sq ft so that leaves almost 8,000sq ft of yard to maintain. It's not acreage or anything, but to a 12 year old it's a lot of yard to push a heavy ass mower around and a shite ton of stupid weeds to pull. It's the first out of maybe 3 things ever, that I told my parents to straight f off cause I wouldn't do it. I'd clean the bathrooms, cook, do dishes, do laundry, mop, vacuum- whatever, but I would not mow the damn lawn. Put my foot down real hard on that one.I do think it's important to show the kids how, but confession time, we don't have a lawn mower anymore. My husband hit a point in his career where his time and our family time was worth more than paying for a yard guy so we started paying for a yard guy. We don't mow are own yard anymore and don't ever intend to do it again unless money becomes an issue. Neither one of us likes mowing. I hates it.

@knitknitread I never minded chores either, except for mowing the lawn. I'm a middle child and never got roped into babysitting so I dodged that bullet.

@MandyMost we are aiming for the middle too. Like school supplies, sports equipment, music lessons whatever, we would pay for (assuming we could afford it) but if they want designer jeans and 12 pairs of brand new shoes each school year then they best get a job. I will absolutely make sure they have plenty of clothes to wear and as much access to extracurricular school actives and supplies as I can, but if they want to get picky and fancy with the latest and greatest iPhone, clothes, whatever whatever, they will need to pay for that themselves. I want them to be well cared for and to have a good start in life with their education and social skills and all that, but the real world isn't going to treat them like precious princes who need everything done for them so I don't want to raise them to expect that. Sure they are MY little precious princes, but they ain't all that special to the rest of the planet. When they go off to college I'll still give 'em all the hugs and kisses they want but I'm not doing their f-ing laundry or grocery shopping for them. I want my little bundles of joy to grow up to be grown ass capable men who love their mama but don't need her to still wipe their butts for them.

Haha I must be the weird kid. I loved mowing the grass, but we had a riding mower and I would just listen to my walkman and sing. I do like a somewhere in the middle approach. I couldn't do anything fun until my room was clean, that was fair. I also always had some sort of job through high school and college and I think that really developed my work ethic. My mom would also give me $12 a week for school lunches in high school so I could either buy lunch or make my own and pocket the money... She's a pretty smart lady

PS I wasn't allowed to mow. My older brothers had that task. I was so jealous of this. Now I insist on mowing our 5 acres. It takes 2 hours or so and is super relaxing.

Stuck in a box...this was the same in my family. Now I love to mow! My neighbors were trying to tell me not to mow (I push mow because I like the exercise) so I asked my Ob because I knew she would say it was fine. I was a little sad she confirmed I can’t mow our backyard because it is a huge slope. She said it was too much of a fall risk and the hill would be too much work and could make my heart work too hard. I will mow until my belly says no more!

@sarah-ruby-21 this is one reason I'm glad it was just me and my sister. There weren't any "boy" chores or "girl" chores. Us girlies were it so we got to bake and clean with Mom and use tools with Dad, and mow and paint the fence etc. I had a friend in high school ask me why I had to paint the fence because that's not a girl thing to do, I told him well I don't have any brothers so I'm doing it (and I had gotten into a fender bender so this was how I was paying my parents back... White picket fence that was soooooo long)

@stothi - Totally agree with you on kids having chores. I don't find it appropriate for the 13 & 11 year olds to be responsible for all 3 meals for their huge family every day, but I'd be totally on board with the kids taking turns helping mom or dad out!

@stothi - Totally agree with you on kids having chores. I don't find it appropriate for the 13 & 11 year olds to be responsible for all 3 meals for their huge family every day, but I'd be totally on board with the kids taking turns helping mom or dad out!

This, and I want my kids to have good cooking skills. I was never taught a lot of cooking skills by my parents and had a lot of learning to do when I got out on my own. I’m not going to be the mom making my teens grilled cheese or scrambled eggs because they are helpless. Plus, I want my kids to be proficient with using knives and the oven in a safe manner.

@EErin86 That was exactly me mowing our yard growing up! I loved it. I also got paid $20 and found it really relaxing listening to my mix tapes working on my tan...

@Wishilivedinflorida Totally agree with you about cooking skills. My Mom tried teaching me when I was older and I was never interested in learning. I now LOVE cooking and have started early with my 5 yo DD. She helps me wash and chop fruits and veggies every weekend and loves to bake. It is nice having her help and it is fun, quality time for us to spend together.

@stothi - Totally agree with you on kids having chores. I don't find it appropriate for the 13 & 11 year olds to be responsible for all 3 meals for their huge family every day, but I'd be totally on board with the kids taking turns helping mom or dad out!

This, and I want my kids to have good cooking skills. I was never taught a lot of cooking skills by my parents and had a lot of learning to do when I got out on my own. I’m not going to be the mom making my teens grilled cheese or scrambled eggs because they are helpless. Plus, I want my kids to be proficient with using knives and the oven in a safe manner.

My parents never really taught us to cook and to this day I can barely make more than a grilled cheese or quesadilla. MH does 99.9% of the cooking in our house and already has DS watching him as he cooks.

@EErin86 I LOVED mowing the lawn when I was a kid. We had a push mower and our big yard was on the side of a hill...I saw it as a way to tan and work out haha. And my parents would throw me $20 sometimes.

I have an older brother but he was totally inept at like, everything. My dad wouldn’t let him mow the lawn. So I was the one who helped with yard work, construction-type help, whenever my dad was building a fence, re-wiring the lights, etc. Plus the cleaning and housework. Come to think of it....my brother did nothing ::eyeroll::

ETA benefit is that now, my 40 yo brother can’t hang a shelf, but I can build/fix anything in my apartment.

@Lcardinal04 We're going to Hawaii in June - do it! I'm not looking forward to the flight, but at least I'm on the west coast so it's not as awful as it could be from elsewhere in the US. I'm totally looking forward to the vacation, salt water swims, relaxing, eating... all of it. I'll be right at the beginning of 3rd trimester, I think.

We went to a fundraiser event last night. Had tons of fun with our friend group and the Hs has way too much to drink. I was pretty excited planning for this knowing I would not be hungover this morning so I could really sleep in. Drunk/hangover sleep is not real sleep. Because H is hungover though I get to rest all day if I want...and I am so excited! I slept until 9 for the first time in forever and only really woke up because the cat was telling me she was hungry. Now I’m laying in bed watching TV and taking advantage of this time, knowing I only have a few more months of being able to do this before this is a LO in the house demanding my attention.

@EErin86 sorry to be super late to this, but we planted 300 trees to form a natural barrier around two sides of our property three years ago. We did 2-3ft tall Norway spruce 16' apart staggered in two straight rows. There are places online to order bulk bare root trees if you're looking for something particular. They did not take forever to plant!

We mow about 5 acres of our property and let the rest go natural and it still takes 5-6 hours with a big fancy zero turn the cost of gas for the mower was such an unexpected expense when we moved in here!!

So, I finally looked at the naming odds for the royal baby. I haven't laughed that hard in so fucking long. Arthur and Alice, our boy and girl names, are both the front runners. I'm talking, tears streaming down face and can't breathe laughter.

@Patience7150 our trees come next week! And it's finally looking like spring might appear so hopefully the snow will be gone. We got 1-2 year old trees through the DNR so they will be tiny but not all that expensive